AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.
Create a link to this page
Copy and paste this link tag into your Web page or blog:
Investing's rich fringe benefits. (Capitalism saves: how becoming an investor can transform a person--and a nation).(Brief Article)
Policies aimed at turning more Americans into savers are primarily sold on economic merits. But the financial advantages of accumulating wealth may actually be less important to people than some of the non-economic effects. Academic research has uncovered social and psychological bonuses that accrue along with the dollars and cents. These benefits may represent one key to building more stable families and neighborhoods across America in the future.
Professor Michael Sherraden of Washington University in St. Louis has been testing the effects of Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) since 1997. These experimental accounts are designed to encourage saving and asset building among low-wage workers who ordinarily invest little, by matching individual contributions with outside funds 2-to-1. The pilot program has almost' 2,400 low-income participants around the country who are slowly building wealth. Average workers put aside around $25 per month. When matched, this enables workers to save up to $900 annually. Over time, these savings can turn into the down payment on a house, college education for a child, the means to start a business, or a retirement income well above what Social Security alone could provide.
IDAs don't make the participants millionaires, but they do make them owners. And studies show that even modest amounts of invested wealth produce an unexpected stream of benefits. For instance:
* Asset ownership makes people more oriented toward the future, more confident, and more likely to take calculated risks. Savers feel more in control of their lives.
* Married couples who build up financial assets are less likely to divorce. Improvements in marital stability persist even after controlling for income, race and education. Account holders say they have better relationships with family members.
* Persons with savings are more likely to make education plans for themselves and their children. They perform better on tests and reach higher education levels, even after factoring out differences in income.
* Asset-holders enjoy better long-term health, even after making demographic adjustments.
- Many Social Security accounts would fall short, S&P finds; Study cites likely...
- Magazine article from: Investment News April 4, 2005 700+ words
...as-you-go Social Security insurance system...would mean that average workers would not have...said. Since the Social Security system was meant...the risk for average workers to have personal Social Security accounts. Last...
- How Social Security Taxes Are Counted
- Newspaper article from: The Washington Post April 11, 1995 700+ words
...enact a law to remove Social Security surpluses from budget...diversion and looting of Social Security trust funds to make it...contract with millions of average workers who are depending on Social Security benefits when they retire...
- What comes next in Social Security saga? As Bush presses on, 'progressive...
- Newspaper article from: The Christian Science Monitor May 4, 2005 700+ words
...how he would solve Social Security's long-term financing...and shown how to fix Social Security's problems while...Benefit reductions for average workers would be the steepest in the history of Social Security, says Center on Budget...
- Bush's personal Social Security accounts will reap big dividends for future...
- Newspaper article from: Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service Du Pont, Pete July 19, 2000 700+ words
...savings accounts to make average workers shareholders in our...One is linked with Social Security reform, the other...of his plan to save Social Security. Why would Bush link the two? Social Security is currently a pay...
- If Alan Greenspan Had Bitten the Bullet ...(Statistical Data Included)
- Magazine article from: The American Enterprise Hassett, Kevin Hubbard, Glenn November 1, 1999 700+ words
...decade and a half later and Social Security projections are once again...then, privatization of Social Security was not even on the radar...at least a small part of Social Security? How would average workers have fared if the Greenspan...
- Gathering forces of historic reform.(COMMENTARY)
- Newspaper article from: The Washington Times January 21, 2004 700+ words
...current 12.4 percent Social Security payroll tax 10 percentage...that, to the maximum Social Security taxable income. On average, workers will be contributing...substitute for a portion of Social Security benefits based on the...
- ROBERT B. REICH: SPEAKING OUT.(MAIN)
- Newspaper article from: Albany Times Union (Albany, NY) December 16, 1994 700+ words
...taxes don't account for the decline of the middle class. Federal taxes even including the growing social-security burden on average workers took 19.8 percent of middle income families' earnings in 1980, and take 19.6 percent today...
- Costs, restrictions criticized in Mexico's pension reform.
- Magazine article from: Business Insurance Souter, Gavin August 18, 1997 700+ words
...fiscal problem with the social security system in Mexico, and...to re-enter the old social security system when they retire...Consequently, on average workers only contribute to the social security system for 16 years...
